Ripped Chords and Retired Skin

He's not used to waking up without someone else beside him. It's confusing and caustic and he tries to evade his emotions but lately he's been writing heartsick songs about being on 'bended knee' and desiring second chances, she will never hear those songs. She will never feel that grating beard again and she will never feel his rough fingers grazing over miles of her skin like stoneware, but James had it bad. Oh Lord, sometimes he wishes that he could've just focused on guitar strings and melodies instead of love because it was so difficult to hold on to. Knowing that she was somewhere with another man, digging her painted nails into his back when they—he runs to the bathroom and vomits at the thought. Butterfly kisses and candlelight dinners must've not been enough for her.

After wiping his mouth of residue and sad song lyrics, he holds onto his stomach and stumbles back into the bedroom where he slips a college shirt on. When James sees the refrigerator open from his midnight visit he curses and slaps his forehead, but it's not like it matters anyway. After three slices of cold pizza and two glasses of chocolate milk, James climbs back into bed with tears in his sage green eyes. He's lost everything, his wife, his baby girl, and his ingenuity. The songs he sings don't sound the same, a cappella solos suddenly sound better as a duet and rhythms were off and crescendos ended too early or too late. Maybe he should just buy a harmonica and play guitar like Bob Dylan did.

Or maybe, just maybe, he would just work himself to death all day long at the studio. It's not like anyone was waiting for him at home. What did I do? he'd find himself asking. Why can't I do anything right? All those things he wrote about, rain and mangled hearts and not fitting in, they don't mean anything anymore.

The doorbell rings and he wipes the mucus from his running nostrils before he walks to the front door where he does final touches on his sandy hair. Inhale, exhale, and he opens the door with a gentle twist of the knob. His tired wife has bags that surround her eyes of gold, she looks so sick and upside-down and worried. Gill scratches her head and her words lay on an earthquake, "I, need you."

"Where is Elsie?" he asks, crossing his arms over his chest.

Gill sniffles and blinks. "Shes at my mother's house. Please, James, can I just come in?"

Before she can finish her sentence the door slams on her face and James is back to square one, writing new songs with a shaky right hand and crying his pathetic eyes out until the wind settles down. What couldn't last forever must never be forgotten. Without a doubt, he will always be in love with his wife.